


Things That Can and Can't Be Fixed

by Drag0nst0rm



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Curufin is the last Feanorian, Dysfunctional Family, First Age, Gen, Non-Canonical Character Death, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 09:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18914503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drag0nst0rm/pseuds/Drag0nst0rm
Summary: There must be something Curufin can forge to protect what's left of his family. Some kind of weapon. Some kind of armor.If there is, he finds it too late.





	Things That Can and Can't Be Fixed

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the Silmarillion.
> 
> I posted this a little while back on Tumblr but didn't get around to crossposting this until just now.

The original plan is for Curufin, Celegorm, and Caranthir to stick together in the attack on Doriath. Celegorm and Curufin work well together, and Caranthir’s much larger forces will bolster their own. 

Maedhros concedes all of those points, and then sticks Maglor with Celegorm and Caranthir and keeps Curufin by him. His official reason has something to do with strategy, but Curufin’s pretty sure that Maglor’s snide comment about Nargothrond is far closer to the true.

Curufin grits his teeth and agrees to the plan. As long as the plan works, he doesn’t care how it does.

The plan does not work.

When the battle’s over, he walks into the throne room and sees three of his brothers lying dead on the floor, insufficiently protected by the armor he’d made them.

It is some comfort to see that Dior and Nimloth lie dead too. It’s not enough.

So when Celegorm’s servants confess what has become of two of Luthien’s grandchildren, Curufin snarls and says, “Good.”

He can’t help remembering, though, how a lifetime ago in Aman, Celebrimbor had gotten lost in the forest on a hunting trip Celegorm had talked Curufin into. He’d been so young then. So small. He’d been curled up under a tree and weeping when Curufin had finally found him, and then his son’s whole face had lit up like it contained all the light of the Trees combined.

He thinks of his brothers when he says good.

He thinks of his son when he stalks after the furious Maedhros to find them, cursing himself as he goes.

By the time he finds the children, they are far past either weeping or hope.

 

He thinks of them when two of Caranthir’s old people cautiously present him with the two ash covered elflings they’ve found. He thinks of them, and he thinks of the Ambarussa, the only two of his brothers that he ever got to hold.

His improvements to their armor had still not been enough.

“They’ll make good hostages,” he says shortly and goes off to tell Maedhros. His brother can be the one to handle things from here. Curufin has no patience for dealing with anyone descended from Luthien’s brat.

Maedhros just keeps staring bleakly into the funeral pyres when Curufin tells him. His brother has been fracturing fast since Doriath, and none of the tools Curufin knows how to wield can possibly meld him back together. 

That still doesn’t make this Curufin’s problem. Someone else can deal with it.

That’s the line he holds to until the twins’ shock wears off, and they both start wailing as the remaining forces march away from the city. Curufin waits with growing impatience for someone else to deal with it before finally turning his horse around and riding hard back to the wagon they’re being kept in. The guards look at him helplessly when he arrives. Does _no one_ else know how to deal with children?

He sings them a soothing lullaby to get them to shut up and because despite what their parents probably told them, he’s not a complete monster.

He sings it in Quenya because that’s the tongue he once sang to Celebrimbor in, and because they’re descended from Thingol, and Curufin’s never claimed to be without spite.

 

If Maglor had lived, he probably would have trained them to sing, but Maglor had never seen Luthien’s power honed into a weapon. The twins can sing well enough on their own; Curufin’s not about to hand hostages a weapon he can’t just as easily take away from them.

Instead, he teaches them how to use the forge.

The one he has in their last remaining fortress is small and poorly supplied, but he makes do. More and better weapons are always needed, as is more and better armor. Making new things is difficult with the limited materials, but there’s always room to improve the old.

Maedhros’s armor is the best it’s ever been.

Teaching them brings back unwelcome memories of times long gone. Of his own father teaching him how to create wonders. Of in his own turn teaching his son.

His son who now hates him. He has at least that advantage when dealing with these children: They already hate him, so he can hardly make that relationship worse.

He continues with that assumption until he sees Elros practically glow when he grudgingly praises the boy’s latest effort.

Apparently, with Maedhros still all but ignoring them, they’ve latched onto him like magnets to iron. 

Curufin doesn’t _want_ Luthien’s third generation brats to latch onto him. He wants his own family back.

But this is what he has, and he has to admit, if only to himself, that it’s nice to hear small feet moving through the workshop again.

He manages to find enough scrap metal to melt down to make them their own armor and finds ways to adjust it as they grow.

 

When Maedhros decrees that the children are to be sent to Gil-Galad, Curufin considers arguing with him, but Maedhros has turned into too brittle a metal to be worked with, and his brother’s faith in him is fragile enough without him seeming to challenge the elder’s power. 

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself, and tries to convince himself of it as he brings down his hammer again and again.

Their armor has to be perfect before they leave.

 

The night before they go, Elrond lingers in the forge and asks him, “If we see Celebrimbor, should we tell him - “

“Tell him anything you like,” Curufin interrupts. “I don’t care.”

Or, rather, Celebrimbor wouldn’t.

 

His father’s work burns his hand, and Curufin doesn’t care. Fire and his father are inextricably bound together. Of course it burns. Curufin had often been burned as he learned his father’s craft until he mastered it at last. Devouring heat is just one last opportunity to learn.

Maedhros sees things differently.

Maedhros - 

The armor was never built to withstand that kind of fall.

 

He rounds up what followers they have left and finds them a place deep in woods he’s never walked before. They build again, one last time, a small place, but one he thinks they can hold.

The Silmaril he sets on the wall of his workshop, never minding the light’s faint burn.

 

News comes slowly to them and late. 

By the time he hears of Elros’s choice, there is nothing he can do. No metal made by even his hands can save a mortal from age.

By the time he hears of Celebrimbor, it’s probably too late too, but he and all his people ride out anyway.

 

The city is just visible in the distance when for the first time in an Age, his son’s mind reaches out and touches his own.

Celebrimbor doesn’t speak.

He screams.

When the agony, far beyond any lullaby’s ability to soothe away , ends at last, there is a finality to it that there has never been before.

Curufin turns his horse, but not for home.

 

Gil-Galad dislikes wearing two of Celebrimbor’s rings at once. The power tugs at him in ways that feel dangerous, so instead he keeps one locked in his desk.

He regrets that choice when he walks into his study to see an elf examining it. He regrets it more when the elf looks up and he realizes who it is.

“Curufin, son of Feanor.”

The last of Feanor’s line ignores him. “I see how he did it now,” he says softly, probably to himself. “Very clever, Tyelpe. But I think I may yet be able to do you one better if Atar’s work allows.”

“What are you doing?” Gil-Galad demands, and this time Curufin answers.

“Studying the workmanship,” he says, and his voice turns dark with rage. “If it’s rings Sauron wants, then rings he will have. If it takes every drop of my fëa and breaking the Silmaril itself, I will make such rings as to make him regret ever having heard of a forge.”

Looking at the light like dragon flame in his eyes, Gil-Galad believes him.

**Author's Note:**

> I have now done Maedhros the last Feanorian, Curufin the last Feanorian, and, of course, the canonical Maglor the last Feanorian. Maybe someday I'll get around to doing it for the others.


End file.
